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Friday, 25 October 2013

Colour rings

I know this isn’t a Dublin Bay story, but it’ll be interesting to our colour-ring readers.

In October, we blogged about a Galway-ringed Little Egret that we came across on Sandymount Strand during one of our low tide surveys, and in that post mentioned the one that another of the Galway birds had ended up in the Azores. Now another of these colour-ringed birds, DH (ringed in June this year), has been seen... in ICELAND – one of a total of only 16 Little Egret records there ever!

These birds, having colonised Ireland from the south east, must have a tendency to head north west, so maybe that’s something to do with it! The more resightings that are generated, the more chance we’ll have to piece this story together. Please report your colour-ringed Little Egret re-sightings to jlusby@birdwatchireland.ie

DH Birding Iceland

We also posted about a Greenshank colour-ringing study that aims to ascertain the wintering grounds of these waders. The latest news is that another of the Scottish-ringed birds has been recently been recorded on the Mullet Peninsula in Mayo.

Colour-ringed Greenshank Peter Hill

This guy, “NB-LO,” was ringed in July 2010 in the Ythan Estuary in north east Scotland, was re-sighted close to the ringing location six times between then and the August 2010, and wasn’t seen again until it turned up in Mayo on the 14th October this year. Any colour-ringed Greenshanks should be sent to Brian Etheridge brian@milvus.myzen.co.uk

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